EU laws and China’s broken listening post in the Indian Ocean

Cocos Islands: one small effect of the EU’s arms embargo on China and Myanmar

News Insightreports that Germany will not be able to rebuild China’s listening post in the Indian Ocean, on Myanmar’s Cocos Islands. China’s efforts to procure German equipment received a double whammy — because EU laws restrict sales of military equipment to China and because the junta in Myanmar, in whose territory the equipment will end up, is again on the blacklist.

Given the covertness of its operations in the Cocos, China is unlikely to turn this into a diplomatic issue with the Europeans. It will eventually procure the gear from some other source. The ensuing delay, however, means that it perhaps will not get the inside story on how India is rebuilding its defence installations in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.